Motorola Inc. (NYSE: MOT) was hit with downgrades late in the week. Some analysts think that it sold only 40 million handsets in the fourth quarter. Rival Nokia Corp. (NYSE: NOK) usually moves about 100 million. The Razr's success is now just a memory.
Citi Investment Research lowered its price target on Motorola from $22.50 to $18.50. Most shareholders wish that the stock would hit the lower number. In after-hours trading on Friday, the shares fell to $15.
There has been much talk about breaking the company into pieces. When the company traded at $20, that was less likely. But, the MOT market cap is now only $34 billion.
In the last quarter, Motorola's handset business lost $248 million on $4.5 billion in sales. Based on Nokia's market value, it would not be extraordinary if this piece of the company fetched $25 million to $30 million from rival Sony Ericsson or Samsung.
Motorola's "Network and Home Mobility" unit includes video delivery and set-top box divisions. It had revenue of $2.4 billion in the last quarter and operating income of $159 million. At 10x annual operating income, it would be worth nearly $7 billion to a company like Cisco Systems (NASDAQ: CSCO).
Finally, Motorola's Enterprise Mobility Solutions business had operating income of $328 million last quarter on revenue of almost $2 billion. Revenue was up 47% from the same quarter a year earlier. It is not hard to imagine that this part of the company is worth in excess of $10 billion.
Added up, that is as much as $47 billion. Wall Street would probably take that right now.
Douglas A. McIntyre is an editor at 247wallst.com.
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